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A news story coming out of Milwaukee reports that respected black jurist, Louis Butler, was one of 7 Obama nominees to face GOP opposition to being nominated to judicial positions, in Butler’s case one of two named as potential federal judges. Will Obama fold the tent on these seven?
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
President Barack Obama will have to resubmit Louis Butler’s name to the Senate next year if he still wants the Wisconsin judge to fill a slot on the federal bench.
Butler was among seven nominees who failed to gain Senate approval before the chamber adjourned for the year. Republican leaders could have agreed to allow the nominations to continue pending in the Senate but insisted on sending the names back to the White House – effectively signaling their opposition to the nominees.
Reached by phone, Butler said he had no comment on the situation and that he was referring inquiries to the Obama administration. White House officials also provided no comment.
It’s unclear whether Obama will choose to renominate his picks or how Senate leaders will proceed once the Senate reconvenes Jan. 20.
"In light of Republican opposition, we will need to discuss steps with the White House," Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said in an e-mail.
(emphasis added)
What is especially troubling here is the comment of Jim Manley that "In light of Republican opposition, we will need to discuss steps with the White House." Too often, these steps simply mean rolling over to GOP opposition.
Louis Butler is highly qualified for the federal bench. Born in Chicago’s South side, Butler has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, served as a judge on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and served as an Adjunct Law Professor at Marquette University. Earlier in his career, he also served as a State of Wisconsin public defender from 1979 to 1992 (being the first such person to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court) and as a judge in the Milwaukee municipal courts and then the state circuit court for a total of four years.
Butler is currently Jurist in Residence-Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin Law School where he teaches courses in Appellate Advocacy and Criminal Law. He also serves as a permanent member of the faculty of the National Judicial College in Reno and serves as a member of the bench in the Southwestern Law School Moot court competition in Los Angeles.
He is the winner of numerous awards including the NAACP "Foot Soldier’s Award", the Thomas J. Cannon Equal Justice Award, and the William M. Coffey Memorial Award presented by the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Justice Butler also recently served as a panelist for the Sandra Day O’Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary, 2008 Conference: Our Courts and Corporate Citizenship, at Georgetown Law School.
Butler lost his seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a hotly contested election in 2008 in which big corporations and manufacturers put up millions of dollars for his opponent. The GOP and big business have dubbed Butler a "liberal activist" and criticized some of his criminal decisions as "pro-defense."
Here is some information on other judicial nominations that were held up:
Butler was one of two judicial nominees whose names were sent back to the White House. The other was Edward Chen, nominated for a federal judgeship in the Northern District of California.
Three Justice Department nominees were also blocked: Dawn Johnsen, slated to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Christopher Schroeder and Mary Smith, picked to serve as assistant attorney generals. The two others were: Craig Becker, who had been nominated to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, and David Teeples, nominated to be a brigadier general in the Army.
Obama could chose to resubmit these judicial picks in January, 2010, but a single Republican could put a "hold" on them. Under Senate rules, the Obama administration would have to marshal 60 votes to move the nominations forward.
So Butler is black, a former criminal defense attorney, highly respected in the legal community, and has eight year’s experience as a judge including four on a state supreme court (where he was the first African American to ever serve). It will be interesting to see how much fight the "no fight" Obama puts up for Butler and these other nominees.
Note that Dawn Johnsen’s nomination has been left twisting in the wind for months by the Obama administration. Overall, Obama has a poor record on pushing forth his judicial appointees as commented on by observers like Glenn Greenwald and others. That all seven of these picks are progressive types doesn’t hold out much hope for them as Obama has shown no support (let alone fight) for Democrats from the Democratic side of the Democratic party.
17 Comments
“Obama has shown no support (let alone fight) for Democrats from the Democratic side of the Democratic party.”
Very striking comment.
Striking but unfortunately true, Avivagabriel.
Good post. Recommended.
Nothing is as infuriating as seeing your supposed leader subjugate himself to obstructionists. Is reconciliation an option in judicial nominations, or is 60 votes required for that process?
Is that freaking Lieberman holding out on us again?
I don’t believe there is any chance that Obama will resubmit any of these nominations.
BTW, although I’m not familiar with Justice Butler, I think your description of his background and achievements makes him an outstanding candidate to replace either Justice Stevens or Justice Ginsberg. Both are expected to announce their retirements next term from the US Supreme Court.
Hmmm. Will Obama roll or fight? Hard question. Not.
Absent enough public outcry, I’m afraid Mason @ 3 is reading this right.
Note, particularly, that Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (Errol Southers) is known to have been objected to/held by Senator DeMint for the last four months, and yet the nomination of Southers was nevertheless held over and not relegated to the round-file like Johnsen’s or Butler’s (quietly were). Which was demonstrated just this last week by Harry Reid publicly announcing that he would be filing a cloture motion on the Southers nomination as soon as the Senate reconvenes, in order to attempt to override the DeMint hold.
Here’s how all this happened in the Senate on Christmas Eve, the day the Senate adjourned:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2009_record&page=S14139&position=all
This sounds like good reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (many thanks to fflambeau for picking up and elaborating on it) but, as usual, we’ll probably get no such coverage from the nation’s big national papers, or from reporters asking the pertinent questions of the pertinent people, which in this case definitely includes Obama. [For example, to Obama or his spinners: "Did you, or anyone else in the White House, ask the majority leader to exclude all seven, or any, nominees from his Christmas Eve unanimous consent request waiving Paragraph 6 of Rule 31?" To Reid or his spinner Manley: "Did anyone in the White House ask you to exclude all seven, or any, nominees from your Christmas Eve unanimous consent request waiving the provisions of Rule 31, Paragraph 6?"]
Because we see that even though at least one nominee (Southers, and probably many others) had an existing Republican hold on him, that hold did not prevent the adoption on 12/24 of a unanimous consent request that overrode the rules and held over most pending nominations, his included. [Mitch McConnell is another person to ask about this particular 12/24 UC Request and any Republican objections to it in some earlier iteration, if any.]
Which pretty much puts the lie to the convenient cover story that a Republican objection must have been the reason all seven of these worthy nominees, Johnsen & Butler included, were left out in the cold.
Here’s Rule 31, Paragraph 6 again:
The provisions of that paragraph are what the Cardin Christmas Eve unanimous consent request above explicitly waived with regard to all the other pending Obama nominations. [Question for Reid & McConnell: "Other than the known DeMint TSA-nominee hold, are all other held-over nominations free of any holds or objections at this time?"]
We should also not overlook the fact that any Democrat could have “objected” to the Christmas Eve UCRequest of Reid/Cardin because Dawn Johnsen’s nomination (or one of the other six) was not also included. That would have either forced all nominations to be resubmitted next session, or forced the inclusion of Johnsen, et al., possibly against the (secret) wishes of Obama/Reid. So why didn’t any Democrat object (Senator Whitehouse)??
“So why didn’t any Democrat object”; rhetorical or are you sincere in this question?
Both, actually.
Asking sincerely, because:
1. Someone (in the media) should publicly ask Democratic Senators like Whitehouse what transpired in the backrooms on this UCRequest. If they don’t ask, the private deals and private objections never get on the public record, and our private Senate continues on its merry way, enabling Party finger-pointing without proof.
Asking rhetorically, because:
2. Obviously, if Democratic Senators like Whitehouse either perceived, or were explicitly told – again (conveniently) in private and off the record – that Obama is abandoning these nominees, because of real or threatened Republican opposition, or for some other reason, Whitehouse – being a Party/Presidential loyalist before a Senator (like almost everyone else in our Party-strangled Congress today) – would keep his mouth shut (as he and every other Democrat clearly did on the Cardin/Reid UCRequest) and go along to get along, wouldn’t he? No matter how impressed and supportive Whitehouse has claimed to be of the Johnsen nomination from day one.
Excellent points powwow and thanks in particular for presenting the Senate rules governing this issue. It is ALL on Obama now. He can still resubmit the names of the people involved but, like you and like Mason, I doubt that he will.
This action especially hurts Butler. He could eventually be a U.S. Supreme Court pick given his background but this action really prevents that from happening because it means he will not get a shot at a federal judgeship which is the usual stepping stone to the high court. So, in essence, Obama is aiding and abetting in the taking down of an African American who has an excellent judicial background. But Butler really is a progressive, not a sham like Obama, so look for Rahm Obama to help nix his career.
Republicans cannot stop all that much in the Senate by themselves. Democrats are spitting in Obama’s face, and he isn’t doing anything.
Sure He will, a man with no balls can’t show off what He doesn’t have.
of course he’ll fold again…and again and again. We elected a concessionary politician with no strong principles, not a leader. Ralph was right about that.
Remember how Dubya used to make really terrible choices about everything and second guessed himself because he was afraid of offending the minority party?
Me neither.
Obama sucks.
Obama knows he is going to continue to piss off the left, so he needs to be careful of the right and pick some of their votes up to be reelected. Worked for Clinton, after all. Poor Obama hasn’t a clue how much he is hated by the right. He can do everything they ask of him and not get a single vote. They’ve been telling him this loud and clear but he just doesn’t want to believe it. Going to the left to keep their votes would mess up his grand financial plans.
News reports indicate Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) will continue to push for the appointment of Louis Butler to a federal judgeship. Kohl and Sen. Russell Feingold both strongly supported Butler before the Senate Judiciary Committee which ended up supporting Butler on a straight line vote in late December.
From “Kohl to keep pushing Butler as U.S. Judge after nomination turned back” by Ron Seely in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Here’s some more news on another distinguished jurist, Edward Chen, whose nomination is being blocked to a federal judgeship. Chen would be the first Asian American appointed to the federal bench in Northern California. He’s a former ACLU attorney and magistrate in San Francisco. It appears that some of the opposition to him stems from supposedly pro choice stands he took. He’s also been criticized, get this, for criticizing the slow Katrina relief effort and for saying that the slowness may have been based on race and class.
From SFGate:
Note that Dawn Johnsen’s nomination has been held up for 11 months. She would effectively replace John Yoo so we know why the GOP (and maybe Obama himself) are not too keen on having a progressive in that spot.
A late addendum to this thread, to both highlight one glaring oversight I made in the “held” nominees department (that relates to the absence of objections) and to join fflambeau in adding some further context for the record (prompted by Kagro X’s helpful review today of this subject at DailyKos).
My oversight was forgetting that despite three known holds from two Republicans and Bernie Sanders, the nomination of Ben Bernanke for another four-year-term as Federal Reserve Chairman was included in the group of pending nominations that were unanimously held over for the next session of the 111th Congress (a group from which the nomination of Dawn Johnsen was explicitly excluded).
Bernie Sanders, among others, even more egregiously than Senator Whitehouse on the omission of Johnsen, evidently didn’t see fit to put his money where his mouth is on Bernanke’s supposedly “held” nomination, by objecting to Bernanke’s name being included in the Cardin/Reid Unanimous Consent Request on Christmas Eve (that I posted in comment 5).
For further context, here’s the Executive Calendar, post-12/24′s action, with the names of still-pending nominees (judiciary and non-judiciary) who have already been favorably reported out of committee, ready for floor action. Those nominees alone amount to 72 committee-approved nominees held over for the next session, by the Cardin/Reid UCAgreement. The oldest pending nomination on that calendar was reported out of committee in May, 2009.
The seven nominations (including Dawn Johnsen’s and Louis Butler’s) excepted (for unexplained reasons) from the list of those nominations held over are less than 10% of all the pending nominations that were held over – without objection – by the Democratic and Republican Parties on Christmas Eve in the Senate.
See also this Washington Post compilation of presidential appointments and nominations, apparently exclusive of Judicial Branch nominees:
The unanswered question about the exclusion of just seven nominees from the Cardin/Reid Christmas Eve nomination rules-override UCRequest that included at least 72 other nominees, including both Bernanke and Southers despite known holds on both nominations, remains: Why?